Reversibly Switchable Phase-Dependent Emission of Quinoline and Phenothiazine Derivatives towards Applications in Optical Sensing and Information Multicoding.

Three new quinoline and di-tert-butyl phenothiazine isomeric derivatives were synthesized and characterized towards applications for oxygen sensing and optical information multicoding. The compounds with phenylene linker showed outstanding phase-dependent reversibility between ON/OFF states (low and high emission intensity, drastic shifting of emission colors, short- and long-lived fluorescence) in systematic grinding/fuming cycles, as required for multichannel memory devices based on optical information multicoding. The conformational diversity of the phenothiazine unit resulted in dual emission of the doped films implemented by the different luminescence mechanisms with peaks located at 414/530, 416/540, and 440/582 nm. The presence of a phenylene linker and thus two rotational degrees of freedom resulted in quenching of the delayed fluorescence of quasi-equatorial conformers in the solid state. The compound containing no phenylene bridge was characterized by two different driving photoluminescence mechanisms of the doped films: short fluorescence of the quasi-axial conformer and thermally activated delayed fluorescence of the quasi-equatorial form. This compound showed oxygen sensitivity with a Stern-Volmer constant of 7.5×10-4  ppm-1 .

An iminodibenzyl-quinoxaline-iminodibenzyl scaffold as a mechanochromic and dual emitter: donor and bridge effects on optical properties.

The influence of phenyl linkage and donor strength on the photophysical properties of new derivatives of quinoxaline-containing iminodibenzyl and iminostilbene moieties is studied. The donor-acceptor derivatives showed dual thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) and room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) despite a large energy gap between the excited singlet and triplet states (ca. 0.5 eV). This extremely rare observation is explained by the twisted and rigidified structure of the iminodibenzyl moiety.

Multicolor Luminescence Switching and Controllable Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Turn on/Turn off in Carbazole-Quinoxaline-Carbazole Triads.

We report a series of thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) molecules with mechanochromic luminescence properties and reversible TADF turn on/off properties in solid state that are induced by the transition between amorphous and crystalline states. Additionally, multicolor altering through external stimulus is demonstrated. All of the studied compounds exhibited recovery of the initial states associated with narrower emission spectra. TADF organic light-emitting diodes fabricated by solution processing rendered high external quantum efficiency up to 10.9% and luminance of 16 760 cd m-2.